I haven't really participated in communities much. I think I'm subscribed to several but 99% of the time, I just post straight to my blog.
But just to play devil's advocate here, the whole reason you start a community is so that only certain types of posts show up there. Otherwise, what's the point? As far as I can tell, the post you are referring to was simply muted in that community so that it does not show up there. This has nothing to do with whether this was an insignificant honest mistake (which it pretty clearly was) or blatant abuse. This is simply done because the content is not what the creators of the community want in the community...again, the whole point of a community is to have only certain types of content there. What you did was the equivalent of an off-topic post on a message board and muting it equivalent to removing it. It's not like banning so there was nothing to warn you about really.
I might say that they could have at least told you what you did wrong but the briefest glance at their guidelines should make it obvious. Admittedly, the default "you have been muted" language comes across as a little harsh sounding but I don't think that is the intent. You weren't muted because they hate you and everything you stand for. Also, it doesn't seem downvotes were involved...at least the pending payout still looked pretty high. I also don't really see how it affects your reputation. It certainly doesn't affect your score (at least as far as I know) and after a few days somebody would have to hunt pretty hard to find that you had a post that was muted somewhere...and I kind of doubt they are going to pick that one thing to judge you on.
I guess bottom line is I think you are viewing this whole being muted thing far more harshly than what is intended.
RE: Posting to the Wrong Hive Community